Kashann and Clan

Well, I decided to be up now. Whether I should be or not is another question but here's my reasoning. I've had zero contractions for weeks now and the closer I get to having this baby (less than a month now till due date) I can't help but totally switch gears from keeping him in to getting him out. It is purely selfish I know to want to have a small baby so the delivery is easier but I can't help it. Marcus was 8 lbs.15 oz. and I liked birthing my 7 pounders way more. 


It's quite a shock to my legs and feet to hold me up at all. I don't know if it is the weight of my tummy or more the lack of exercise for the last 5 months but they aren't adjusting well to the their new job of holding me up.  I am cleaning like mad and loving having the freedom to do so. Moving slowly cleaning like mad of course. But oh, am I sore.


We had an eventful week. Saturday the 29th we had a fairly large snowstorm (at least for prehalloween) and it knocked out our power for days. We got by very nicely with our new wood stove in the basement. Brent had the foresight of putting one in just days before. We also bought a home within the the district that gets town water so when the power goes out the water continues to flow. So besides the inconvenience of warming up water on the stove (gas burners we lit with a match) and taking sponge baths we fared pretty well. We didn't even lose any food because I unloaded all the contents of my fridge and freezer into coolers and tubs and put them outside.


We recently added dish network to our monthly bills and it seems that we just sit around and watch TV every night since then. Without power there wasn't much to do after about 5:30 in the dark. So we all sat around a candle in the same room and talked for a couple hours. We usually went to bed by 8:30 which also was great. Finally the power came back on Tuesday afternoon, but the phone and Internet was still down until last night. I found the whole thing totally bearable and even think these kind of things are a great break from our fast paced life. I love having an excuse to not have to do keep up with the world because we couldn't for a few days. Even our cell phones were out. Brent's got fried somehow and won't even work for phone calls. That probably was our only casualty. The weather is back to normal temps now and the 8 inches of snow we had in our backyard is busy melting away.


Halloween went on. Luckily the storm caused them to postpone festivities until Monday on . . . yes the actual Halloween day. Last year when Halloween was on Sunday we were so impressed that NH scheduled it on Saturday. This year we found out the sad truth that it had nothing to do with observing the Sabbath. Trick or Treating was scheduled for Sunday night this year. So they just have some crazy tradition of celebrating the holiday the night before.


But with all the power lines down they were forced to move it to Monday and told all the kids they had to get it done before dark at 5. We have about 15 kids in our neighborhood and they all go together and meet at the corner by our house. That is about all the trick-or-treaters we had. It was awesome to keep it all in the neighborhood. Then we all went to a neighborhood potluck at a house without power. We huddled around their wood stove with candles and the hosts BBQ'd outside in the snow. I was impressed that the party went on with or without the power. At least the host didn't have to clean since we couldn't see the dust anyway.


I have had a series of problems lately that are contributing to no pictures for the blog. First our IPhoto just up and disappeared from our computer. It is just gone. Not in the trash. All of our pictures were also on Picassa but they are just disorganized all over the place now and there is no way to upload our pictures at all now on this computer. That's what happens when you have 8 people using a computer from the age of 3-41. And of course nobody knows what happened. And then our camera just quit. Right after I got ONE measly Halloween photo of only half my children.


So Yay! We finally get to buy a new camera. For the last 5 years we have been using one that another dental student family (Dave and Briste) donated to the Casper Family after they found out that we hadn't gone digital yet. They had a spare and just handed it over. It worked great but once again had way too much wear and tear thanks to multiple users. So now we are deciding how nice of a camera we want to bring home. It's always a debate when you have children. It seems so much smarter to spend less on stuff so you aren't so upset when the kids drops, spills, tears, colors on. . .  just completely destroys that thing that you had to pay hard earned money for.


Here's a quick rundown on the children.


Kennon was able to compete in the qualifying XC race at state and got her best time ever.  She is now exactly my height and everyone is trying to convince her to play basketball. Except for me. Too many bad experiences trying to live up to my height on the court. She also is busy singing with her schools Silver Lining Group that accompanies the Jazz Band and finally was brave enough to try out for a solo that she sang at a local concert held in our town square.


Savannah had a great season playing offense in Field hockey her first ever time turning out for a sport. She is now trying out for the school play. Her rich and privileged friends have been improving her life significantly lately. One friend donated her their 2010 pair of Uggh's since her parents bought her 2011's. Then another friend handed over her $250 IPod since her parents recently upgraded her. I wish they would clear these gifts by her mother first. There is a reason we didn't want Savannah to have her own IPod with Internet access.I don't know if I can survive raising children this way and think my parents had it way easier.


Camille is playing piano daily and of course starting to hate it since she now is taking lessons and has to practice effectively. She also is playing the flute in the school band and finally got over the fact that our instrument was a craigslist find and that's the main reason we chose that instrument for her.


Caroline is still the loudest, sweetest, and the big sheriff around the house making sure that we keep it fair. And we never do according to her.


Marcus is reading. He is the easiest kid in the world to teach. Are boys smarter?


And his little brother has been the wildest baby yet. I love it because the Dr's have me so worried about him with his placental problem. But he constantly is letting me know he is alive and kicking. We can't wait to meet him.


Brent is spending his day off today with his handyman working on the outside of our house. It is expensive to hire out and usually totally against our core principles of being independent. But Brent was smart enough to know that he would never tackle some of these big projects on the house without someone showing up on Friday morning to work with him.


They are fixing our wood siding replacing some older boards and then building a deck. We are loving our new house despite all the stuff that needs to be done. We have been very happy here and are so glad to be done with renting. Neither of us could stand the fact that we couldn't fix anything around there.  We have plenty to do now. Neither of us will have a reason to be bored for a long time.